A Sonic Chrismas carol!
by The High School Hero
Summary: Its a chrismas carol! Sonic style! First fic! Sonic and a christmas carol with a twist! Will Shadow(Ebenezer Scrooge),ever change his ways? Or will he remain as the meanest,most nastiest person who ever lived? find out in the fic! Rated k for no reason. R&R no flames! I don't like flames...*COMPLETE!*you can take off ur alerts now...
1. Stave 1:the story begins

**Hello everybody! This is my first fanfic so go easy on me! I know its a bit early to christmas but its only 34 days to go yes!**

**Disclaimer:I do not repeat,DO NOT! Own any sonic characters**

**Here are the characters in this chapter:**

**Shadow-ebenezer scrooge**

**Eggman-jacob marley**

**Tails-bob cratchit**

**Without further ado on with the show! Enjoy!**

**-H.S.H**

Eggman was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Shadow signed it: and Shadow's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old eggman was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that eggman was as dead as a door-nail.

Shadow knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Shadow and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Shadow was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Shadow was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of eggman's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that eggman was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot - say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance - literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Shadow never painted out Old Eggman's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Shadow and Eggman. The firm was known as Shadow and Eggman. Sometimes people new to the business called Shadow Shadow, and sometimes Eggman, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Shadow! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Shadow. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Shadow never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My man Shadow, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to give a trifle, no children asked him what's the time, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Shadow. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Shadow care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Shadow.

Once upon a time - of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve - old Shadow sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already - it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

The door of Shadow's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Shadow had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Shadow kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, shadow predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore tails put on his orange comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

Then a man with a strong mind and powerful voice bursts in shadow's office...

**Ooooooo! I wonder who this is? Find out next chapter! read and review plz! it would mean the world to me! also who should be the ghost of chrismas past,present and future? you decide!**

**Se ya!**


	2. stave 1 part 2

**Whoo! I'm on a roll today! Hey guys! Did you like my first chappie? first of all thank you to: ukslaster,1vampire54 and lauren! You guys rock! also,ukslaster:I didn't know you were gonna do the same thing but I was thinking of the same thing but I thought its not cool to steal ur ideas in case you want to do your fanfic so either way I was good.**

**I thought the role of fred scrooge(scrooge's nephew)would be sonic is the opposite of shadow in the games so why not could sonic be fred scrooge then? But if you disagree,its okay!**

** also,I'm doing the christmas carol in school so it gives me a advantage. YES!**

**Okay,enough talking from me on with the show!**

**-H.S.H**

"A merry Christmas, unc! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Shadow's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

"Hmph!" said Shadow, "Humbug!"

Sonic had so heated himself with rapid running in the fog and frost, this nephew of Shadow's, that he was all in a glow; his face was blue and handsome; his emerald eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

"Christmas a humbug, unc?" said shadow's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure."

"I do," said Shadow. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned sonic gaily. "What right have you to be cold hearted? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough."

Shadow having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said "hmph" again; and followed it up with "Humbug."

"Don't be cross, unc! " said the nephew.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! curses upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Shadow indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Shadow's nephew. "But you don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Shadow. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, shadow poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said Shadow, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your job. "You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to sonic. "I wonder you don't go into law"

"Don't be angry, unc. Come! Dine with us tomorrow."

Shadow said that he would see him - yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

"But why?" cried Shadow's nephew. "Why?"

"Why did you get married?" said Shadow.

"...Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love?!" growled Shadow, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"

"No, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"

"Good afternoon," said Shadow.

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why can't we be friends?"

"Good afternoon," said Shadow.

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so stubborn. We have never had any arguments, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

"Good afternoon!," said Shadow.

"And A Happy New Year!"

"Good afternoon!" said Shadow.

His nephew left the room without an angry word . He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who cold as he was, was warmer than Shadow; for he returned them cordially.

"There's another fellow," muttered Shadow; who overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen rings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll go ballistic!.

This lunatic, in letting Shadow's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Shadow's office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

"Shadow and Eggman's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Shadow, or Mr. Eggman?"

"Mr. Eggman has been dead these seven years," Shadow replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night."

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting his paperwork.

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Shadow frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Shadow," said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons?" asked Shadow.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Shadow. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Shadow.

"Both very busy, sir."

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Shadow. "I'm very glad to hear it."

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Shadow replied.

"You want to be anonymous?"

"I want to be left alone," said Shadow. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned - they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Shadow, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides - excuse me - I don't know that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Shadow returned. "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen fled. Shadow returned his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Shadow out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became intense. In the main street at the corner of the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke; a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up tomorrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Shadow's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of -

"God bless you, merry gentleman!

May nothing you dismay!"

Shadow threw chaos spears with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the countinghouse arrived. With an ill-tempered Shadow dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

"You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?" said Shadow.

"If quite convenient, sir."

"It's not convenient," said Shadow, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

Tails smiled faintly.

"And yet," said Shadow "you don't think I'm ill-tempered, when I pay a day's wages for no work."

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every christmas!" said Shadow, buttoning his Black an red coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here earlier next morning."

The clerk promised that he would; and Shadow walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no black and red coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's-buff.

Shadow took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses, and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Shadow, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Shadow, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact, that Shadow had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also that Shadow had as little of what is called fancy about him as any hedgehog in the city of London, even including - which is a bold word - the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in mind that Shadow had not bestowed one thought on Eggman, since his last mention of his seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Shadow, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change - not a knocker, but Eggman's face.


	3. stave 1 part 3

**Yo people! This is ur high school hero speaking!**

**A big special thank you to my man mobius freak for reviewing chappie 1 and 2 to the rest of you.**

**I forgot to mension the characters for the last chapter so I'll do it in this chappie:**

**Shadow-ebenezer scrooge**

**Sonic-fred scrooge**

**Tails-bob cratchit**

**Err...that was it?**

**Now for the characters for this chapter:**

**Shadow-ebenezer scrooge**

**Eggman-jacob marley**

**Wait I thought there was more!**

**Next chapter I will reveal the ghost of christmas past so watch out!**

**Wow,why am I talking to much?sorry for the long author notes so much to talk about!**

**Okay enough talking from me! On with the show!**

**-H.S.H**

Eggman's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Shadow as Eggman used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part or its own expression.

As Shadow looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half-expected to be terrified with the sight of Eggman's moustache sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said "what nonsense" and closed it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Shadow was not a hedgehog to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too: trimming his candle as he went.

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Shadow thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Shadow's dip.

Up Shadow went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and Shadow liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.

Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Shadow had a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts - and yet that face of Eggman, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Eggman's head on every one.

"Humbug!" said Shadow; and walked across the room.

After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar. Shadow then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

"It's humbug still!" said Shadow. "I won't believe it."

His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know him; Eggman's Ghost!" and fell again.

His body was transparent, so that Shadow, observing him, and looking through his red jumpsuit and he could see the two buttons on his suit behind.

Shadow had often heard it said that Eggman had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold miniture glasses. he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

"Hey now!" said Shadow, caustic and cold as ever. "Whatdaya want with me?"

"Much!" - Eggman's voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I was."

"Who were you then?" said Shadow, raising his voice. "You're particular, for a shade." He was going to say "to a shade," but substituted this, as more appropriate.

"In life I was your partner, Ivo Robotnik."

"Can you - can you sit down?" asked Shadow, looking doubtfully at him.

"I can."

"Do it then."

Shadow asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

"You don't believe in me," observed Eggman

"I don't." said Shadow.

"What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses?"

"I don't know," said Shadow.

"Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because," said Shadow, "a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

Shadow was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Shadow felt, the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Shadow could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven.

"You see this toothpick?" said Shadow returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

"I do," replied Eggman.

"You are not looking at it," said Shadow.

"But I see it," said Eggman.

"Well!" returned Shadow, "I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you! humbug!"

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Shadow held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon his chest hair!

Shadow fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.

"Ahhh! Stop!" he said. " why are you tourturing me?"

"Man of the worldly mind!" replied Eggman, "do you believe in me or not?"

"I do," said Shadow. "I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world - oh, woe is me! - and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!"

Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

"You're chained," said Shadow trembling. "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Shadow trembled more and more.

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

Shadow glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see nothing.

"Ivo" he said, imploringly. "Old Ivo Robotnik, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Ivo!"

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes from other regions, Shadow the hedgehog, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house - mark me! - in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!"

It was a habit with Shadow, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.

"You must have been very slow about it, Ivo," Shadow observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference.

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.

"Seven years dead," mused Shadow. "And travelling all the time!"

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse."

"You travel fast?" said Shadow.

"On the wings of the wind," replied Eggman.

"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years," said Shadow.

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.

"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

"But you were always a good man of business, Ivo" faltered Shadow, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried Eggman, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"

Shadow was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly gone."

"I will," said Shadow. "But don't be hard upon me! Don't be harsh, Ivo! Pray!"

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day."

It was not an agreeable idea. Shadow shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Shadow the hedgehog."

"You were always a good friend to me," said Shadow. "Thank you"

"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."

Shadow's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Ivo?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.

"It is."

"I - I think I'd rather not," said Shadow.

"Without their visits," said the Eggman, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, Ivo?" hinted Shadow.

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"Eggman repilied spookily

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Shadow knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an fearful attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open. It beckoned Shadow to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Eggman's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Shadow stopped.

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.

Shadow followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Eggman's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Shadow in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, a purple echidna(a random fan character), with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in animal matters, and had lost the power for ever.

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home.

Shadow closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

**We finally finished stave 1! now for stave2 **

***act cleared music***

**I have a announcement to make!: after a couple of chapters of this fanfic,I will start a new fanfic called:SONIC COUPLES BATTLE !yes, all sonic couples and mainly sonic love triangles, will battle to see which sonic couple or person is the best! You'll get to choose from:**

**-rap battle!**

**-boxing match**

**-sing offs**

**-wrestling cage match **

**And many more... **

**So get pairing and get all the sonic couples you can think of and LET'S GET BATTLING!**

**Please review I didn't see any reviews for the last chapter plz don't make me sad:'-(**


	4. stave 2:the first of the three ghosts

**Yo yo yo! People high school hero here! A big special,humendous thank you to the amazing thunder croft for reviewing chappie 3 for me I'm still blushing after that comment :-)**

**If u haven't seen thunder's stories yet, I suggest you check em out now! They are hackingly cool especially thunder's main story mobian mean girls (which is the best fanfic ever) so seriously go read it! **

**Okay enough from me now,welcome to stave two!**

**Enjoy,**

**-H.S.H-**

When Shadow awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was observing the darkness with his red ruby eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve. It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve.

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.

"Why, it isn't possible," said Shadow, "that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon."

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because "three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr shadow the hedgehog or his order," and so forth, would have become a mere Mobius' security if there were no days to count by.

Shadow went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. Eggman's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?"

Shadow lay in his bed until the chimes had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

"Ding, dong!"

"A quarter past," said Shadow, counting.

"Ding dong!"

"Half past!" said Shadow.

"Ding dong!"

"A quarter to it," said Shadow.

"Ding dong!"

"The hour itself," said Shadow, triumphantly,

"and nothing else!"

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Shadow, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure - he had 5 quills sticking out of his head and 2 quills in the back; he had his eyes had chest hair,similar to shadows' but more had gold bangles with weird lines in the glowed in a silver aura (**have you guessed who it is?if not read on!)** The arms were very long and muscular; his hands had circles int the middle, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. He wore a tunic of the purest white, and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem,the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Shadow looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, the figure opened its eyes. he had golden eyes that was probably the same colour of pure scanned the whole room and finally he laid his eyes on shadow. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

"Are you the Ghost, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked Shadow.

"I am."

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

"Who, and what are you?" Shadow demanded.

"I'm silver, silver the hedgehog. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"Long Past?" inquired Shadow: observant of its dwarfish stature.

"Nope. Your past."

Perhaps, Shadow could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

"What!" exclaimed silver, "Would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!"

Shadow reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having willfully bonneted the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

"Your welfare," said silver.

Shadow expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

"Your reclamation, then. Take heed."

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.

"Get up. And walk with me."

It would have been in vain for Shadow to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

"I'm just a hedgehog," Shadow remonstrated, "and I might fall."

"Just hold my hand ," said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more than this."

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

"Holy chaos control!" said Shadow, clasping his hands together, as he looked around him. "I used to live here. I was a boy here."

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten.

"Your lip is trembling," said silver. "And what is that upon your cheek?"

Shadow muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

"You know the way?" inquired the Spirit.

"Know it!?" cried Shadow with fervour - "I could walk it blindfold."

"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years," observed the Ghost. "Let us go on."

They walked along the road, Shadow recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.

"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said silver. "They have no consciousness of us."

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Shadow knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them. Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and-bye ways, for their several homes? What was merry Christmas to Shadow? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A solitary hedgehog, neglected by his friends, is left there still."

Shadow said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

Off They went, Silver and Shadow, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Shadow sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the paneling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Shadow with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

Silver touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an ax stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an laden with wood.

"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Shadow exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old honest Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy. And Valentine," said Shadow, "and his wild brother, Orson; there they go. And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him? And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess."

To hear Shadow expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

"There's the Parrot." cried Shadow. "Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. "Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?" The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Hallo!"

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor boy!" and cried again.

"I wish," Shadow muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: "but it's too late now."

"What is the matter?" asked Silver.

"Nothing," said Shadow. "Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that's all."

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"

Shadow's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Shadow knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Shadow looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her "Dear, dear brother."

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. "To bring you home, home, home!"

"Home, little child?" returned the boy.

"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're to be a man!" said the child, opening her eyes, "and are never to come back here; but first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world."

"You are quite a woman, little child!"exclaimed the boy.

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried. "Bring down Master Shadow's box, there!" And in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Shadow with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered installments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something" to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Shadow's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered," said Shadow. "But she had a large heart!"

"So she had," cried Shadow. "You're right. I'll not forget it, Silver. Chaos forbid!"

"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think, children."

"One child," Shadow returned.

"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"

Shadow seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, "Yes."

Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battle for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Shadow if he knew it.

"I Know it!" said Shadow. "Was I apprenticed here?"

They went in...

**Ok,who should be mr fezzwig? He will be starring in the next chappie! You decide! So review,review,review! Pretty plz!**


	5. Stave 2 part 2

**Hi guys! Sorry for not updating quickly I had a LOT of homework(damn! I was sure I had no homework!**

**Well, my birthday is tommorow! Yes I'm gonna turn 13! Y'know being a child is great!**

**But being a teen (I heard) is gonna be hell!**

**Well enough of my life and onto the fic!**

**Enjoy!**

**-H.S.H-**

**(P.S: I'm starting my second fanfic,its called sonic couples battle to find out more,go look at my bio! Also,this story reached over 200 views! I'm so happy even if it is my first fic!)**

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Shadow cried in great excitement:

"Why, it's old kinotibor! Bless his heart; it's kinotibor alive again!"

Old kinotibor laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

"Yo ho, there! Shadow! Edward!"

Shadow's former self, now grown a young hedgehog, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow apprentice.

"Edward the wolf, to be sure**(A:Njust another random fan character)**," said Shadow to Silver. "Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Edward. Poor Eddie . Dear, dear."

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Kinotibor. "No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Eddie. Christmas, Shadow. Let's have the shutters up," cried old kinotibor, with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Sweet Chaos."

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it. They charged into the street with the shutters - one, two, three - had them up in their places - four, five, six - barred them and pinned then - seven, eight, nine - and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

"Hilli-ho!" cried old kinotibor, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here. Hilli-ho, Eddie! Chirrup, Shadow."

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Kinotibor looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs Kinotibor, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Kinotibors, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Kinotibor, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) Then old kinotibor stood out to dance with Mrs kinotibor. Top couple too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

But if they had been twice as many - ah, four times - old Kinotibor would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs Kinotibor. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Kinotibor's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would have become of them next. And when old Kinotibor and Mrs Kinotibor had gone all through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to your place; Fezziwig cut - cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr and Mrs Kinotibor took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.

During the whole of this time, Shadow had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Eddie were turned from them, that he remembered Silver, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

"A small matter," said Silver "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude."

"Small!" echoed Shadow.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Shadow: and when he had done so, said,

"Why! Is it not! He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

"It isn't that," said Shadow, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. "It isn't that, Silver?. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

"What is the matter?" asked Silver.

"Nothing in particular," said Shadow.

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.

"No," said Shadow, "No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now! That's all."

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish; and Shadow and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

"My time grows short," observed the Silver. "Quick!"

This was not addressed to Shadow, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Shadow saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.

"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

"A golden one."

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"

"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently. "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"

"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."

She shook her head.

"Am I?"

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man."

"I was a boy," he said impatiently.

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you."

"Have I ever sought release?"

"In words? No. Never."

"In what, then?"

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us," said the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a struggle," You think not?"

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, "Heaven knows. When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl - you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."

He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.

"You may - the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will - have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen."

She left him, and they parted.

"Silver!" said Shadow, "show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"

"One more, Shadow!" exclaimed the Ghost.

"No more!" cried Shadow! "No more, I don't wish to see it! Show me no more!"

But the silver furred ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Shadow believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Shadow in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of them. Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter. The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received. The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter. The immense relief of finding this a false alarm. The joy, and gratitude, and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

And now Shadow looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."

"Who was it?"

"Guess!"

"How can I? Tut, don't I know," she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Hedgehog."

"Mr. Hedgehog it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe."

"Silver!" said Shadow in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

"Remove me!" Shadow exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"

He turned upon the Shadow, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Shadow observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Shadow pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before Shadow sank into a heavy sleep.

**Well that's the end of stave 2**

***act cleared music!***

**Now go and look at my 2nd fanfic! Please!**


	6. stave 3:the second of the three ghosts

**Hey guys and gals! Sorry for the long wait, I was too caught up on my second fanfic 'sonic couple battle' (if you haven't read it go read it after this.**

**Okay,this is stave 3 which means that a new ghost is coming to shadow's room. for those who read a chrismas carol before, you can just start the story for those who haven't,the ghost of christmas past is shadow's second ghost to be visited**

**Well that's all I have to say**

**Welcome to stave 3**

**Enjoy!**

**H.S.H**

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Shadow had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through 's intervention. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For, he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Shadow quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think - as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too - at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

The moment Shadow's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and asked him if he could enter. He obeyed.

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Shadow's time, or Eggman's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of grapes, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a red echidna with cool dreadlocks and he had boxing gloves on, glorious to see,he had magenta eyes and it was looking at Shadow, as he came peeping round the door.

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in, your welcome here!"

Shadow entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Shadow he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

"Allow me to introduce myself; I am knuckles the echidna (just call me knux) and I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said knuckles. "Come forward, shads"

Shadow reverently did so. He was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung loosely on the figure, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its red straight dreds were long and free; free as his genial face, his sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

"You have never seen me before! Am I right?" exclaimed the echidna.

"I've Never seen you before," Shadow made answer to it.

"Have younever walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?" pursued Knuckles.

"I don't think I have," said Shadow. "I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Knux?"

"More than eighteen hundred," said Knuckles

"A tremendous family to provide for," muttered Shadow.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

"Knuckles," said Shadow submissively, "conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight, if you have taught to teach me, let me profit by it."

"Touch my robe."

Shadow did as he was told, and held it fast.

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms.

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off, and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick brown mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Station Square had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball - better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest - laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers" benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

The Grocers'! oh the Grocers'! Nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses. It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, clashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their joyful faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Shadow beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it was.

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a citizen shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

"Why are you throwing fist punches in the air?" asked Shadow

"Err...I like to keep these fists in shape and..."

"Would it apply to any kind of time on this day?" asked Scrooge.

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Shadow.

"Because it needs it most."

"Knux," said Shadow, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment."

"Yep" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Shadow. "Wouldn't you?"

"Yep" cried the echidna.

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day," said Shadow. "And it comes to the same thing."

"Err...yep" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family," said Shadow

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

Shadow promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Shadow had observed at the baker's), that nonetheless his gigantic fist, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Shadow's clerk's; for there he went, and took Shadow with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped...

**So how did I do? Good? Bad? You tell me!**

**Hit the review button! And can someone remind me who is shadow's clerk again? I forgot.**

**See ya!**


	7. stave 3 part 2

**Hey guys! I aint dead! High school hero never dies! Anyhoo, I'm trying to get this finished around christmas and its almost here so ill get started with it right away!**

**The last chapter is gonna be a mega chapter!**

**And I'm also continuing my new story: S.C.B (sonic couple battles), and I'm enjoying writing it. (if you haven't reviewed it plz do!)**

**Well that's all I have to say**

**See ya!**

**-H.S.H**

the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Tails Prower's dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. Think of that. Tails had but fifteen rings a-week himself and had Like his namesakes and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house.

Then up rose Mrs Prower, which was Cosmo. Tails' wife, dressed out with a green and white petal dress , which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Mina Mongoose, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Peter Prower plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Tails' private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Prowers, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Prowers danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Prower to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.

"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs Prower. "And your brother, Charmy bee; And Blaze warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour."

"Here's Blaze, mother," said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

"Here's Blaze, mother!" cried the two young Prowers. "Hurrah! There's such a goose, Blaze!"

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" said Mrs Prower, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother."

"Well. Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs Prower. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless you"

"No, no. There's father coming," cried the two young Prowers, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Blaze, hide!"

So Blaze hid herself, and in came the two tailed kit Tails, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Charmy bee upon his shoulder. Alas for Charmy, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

"Why, where's Blaze?" cried Tails, looking round.

"Not coming," said Mrs Prower.

"Not coming!" said Tails, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming on Christmas Day?"

Blaze didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Prowers hustled Charmy , and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

"And how did Charmster behave?" asked Mrs Prower, when she had rallied Tails on his credulity, and Tails had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

"As good as gold," said Tails, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."

Tails' voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Charmy before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Tails, turning up his cuffs - as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby - compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Prowers went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course - and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs Prower made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Mina sweetened up the apple-sauce; Mina dusted the hot plates; Tails took Charmy beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Prowers set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs Prower, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Charmy, excited by the two young Prowers, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Tails said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Prower said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Prowers in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Mina, Mrs Prower left the room alone - too nervous to bear witnesses - to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough? Suppose it should break in turning out? Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose - a supposition at which the two young Prowers became livid? All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Cosmo entered - flushed, but smiling proudly - with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Tails said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Prower since their marriage. Cosmo said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Prower would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Prower family drew round the hearth, in what Tails Prower called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Tails' elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Tails served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Tails proposed:

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us."

Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Charmy bee, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Tails held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

"Knux" said Shadow, with an interest he had never felt before,"tell me if Charmy bee will live."

"I see a vacant seat," replied the red echidna, "in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die."

"No, no," said Shadow. "Oh, no, Knuckles. Say he will be spared."

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned Knux, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Shadow hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

"Shads," said the Ghost, "if a man you will be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! To hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust."

Shadow bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on hearing his own name.

"Mr Shadow!" said Tails; "I'll give you Mr Shadow, the Founder of the Feast!"

"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs Prower, reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it."

"My dear," said Tails, "the children. Christmas Day."

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health of such an Dark, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr Shadow. You know he is, Miles. Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow."

"My dear," was Tails' mild answer, "Christmas Day."

"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said Mrs Prower, "not for his. Long life to him. A merry Christmas and a happy new year! - he'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!"

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Shadow was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Shadow the Baleful being done with. Tails told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixRings weekly. The two young Prowers laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Mina, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Shadow had his eye upon them, and especially on Charmy, until the last.

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as Shadow and Knuckles went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter - artful witches, well they knew it - in a glow.

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted. How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach. The very lamplighter, who ran on before dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as Knuckles, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas.

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed - or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.

**Somehow,I feel like I just home...**

**See ya!**


	8. stave 3 part 3

**2 in 1 day? Awesome!**

**'Only 10 days till christmas, I want a PS3!'**

**And a wii u with a sonic game for me!'**

**Oh hi everyone! I'm so into the christmas spirit also, 1 week to go till christmas the holidays! Now I will update more but this will end soon so...ok.**

**This is the last chapter for stave 3 stave four is coming soon!**

**See ya!**

**!H.S.H!**

"What place is this?" asked Shadow.

"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth," returned Knuckles. "But they know me. See."

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song - it had been a very old song when he was a boy - and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again.

The Shadow did not tarry here, but bade Shadow hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped - whither. Not to sea? To sea. To Shadow's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds - born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the water - rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself.

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea - on, on - until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

It was a great surprise to Shadow, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Shadow, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Shadow to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Shadow's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Shadow's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Shadow's nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Shadow's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried Sonic. "He believed it too."

"More shame for him, Sonic." said Sonic's wife amy indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed - as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh perfectly satisfactory!

"He's a comical old fellow," said Shadow's nephew, "that's the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offenses carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him."

"I'm sure he is very rich, Sonic," hinted Amy. "At least you always tell me so."

"What of that, my dear?" said Shadow's nephew. "His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking - ha, ha, ha! - that he is ever going to benefit us with it."

"I have no patience with him," observed Shadow's niece. Shadow's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

"Oh, I have," said Sonic. "I am sorry for him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."

"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted Shadow's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

"Well. I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Scourge?"

Scourge had clearly got his eye upon one of Shadow's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Shadow's niece's sister - the pink one with loads of curls in : not the one with the roses - blushed.

"Do go on, Sonic," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. "He never finishes what he begins to say. He is such a ridiculous fellow."

Sonic revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed.

"I was only going to say," said Sonic," that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it - I defy him - if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying Uncle Shadow, how are you. If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday."

It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Shadow. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle joyously.

After tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Scourge, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Shadow's niece played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Shadow from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Ivo Robotnik.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop. There was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Scourge was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his shoes. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Shadow's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains.

Shadow's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Knuckles and Shadow were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Sonic, beat her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as could have told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Shadow, for, wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Shadow; blunt as he took it in his head to be.

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.

"Here's a new game," said Shadow. "One half hour, Spirit It was a Game called Yes and No, where Shadow's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an donkey, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

"I have found it out! I know what it is, Sonic! I know what it is!"

"What is it?" cried Sonic.

"It's your Uncle Shadow!"

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes," inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr Shadow, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.

"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said Sonic, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, " to 'Uncle Shadow!' "

"To Uncle Shadow!" they cried.

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the dark hedgie, whatever he is," said Shadow's nephew. "He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Shadow!"

Uncle Shadow had imperceptibly become so happy and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. Knuckles stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Shadow his precepts.

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Shadow had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that his dreadlocks was grey.

"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Shadow.

"My life upon this globe, is very brief," replied the Ghost. "It ends tonight."

"Tonight!?" cried Shadow.

"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near."

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Shadow, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Knuckles' sorrowful reply. "Look here."

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two little hedgehogs; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

"Shads, look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Shadow started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

"Knux, are they yours?" Shadow could say no more.

"They are Humanitys'" said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end."

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Shadow

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

The bell struck twelve.

Shadow looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Ivo Robotnik, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

Well that's it from stave 3 stave 4 is coming soon!

*act cleared music*

Before I go could u review this story plz? I wanna see if this story is still alive

See ya!


	9. stave 4:the last of the three ghosts

**Yo guys! Stave 4 is here and with only a few days left till christmas,well...there isn't much more to say but to enjoy!**

**-H.S.H**

The Shadow slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Shadow bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

The very faint Shadow,was the very same shadow as shadow's and It rose from the floor. He looked exactly like shadow but his streaks,gloves and air shoes are greyish blue which concealed it. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit never spoke but moved in a zombifying manner,with his head down.

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" said Shadow.

The Spirit answered not, he stopped and pointed downwards with its hand.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Shadow persued. "Is that so, Spirit?"

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Shadow feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.

But Shadow was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the dusky shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

"Lead on," said Shadow. "Lead on. The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit."

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Shadow followed the very faint hedgehog who we all know as mephiles, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Shadow had seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Shadow advanced to listen to their talk.

"No," said a man with a monstrous chin," I don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "I thought he was 'the ultimate life form'."

"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.

"What has he done with his money?" asked a blue-faced echidna with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like jelly.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know."

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?"

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must be fed, if I make one."

Another laugh.

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," said the first speaker," for I never wear white gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye."

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Shadow knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.

The Phantom walked on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Shadow listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.

"How are you?" said one.

"How are you?" returned the other.

"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey."

"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it."

"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I suppose?"

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning."

Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.

Shadow was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Eggman, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this.

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold.

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, where Shadow had never penetrated before, although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offenses of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frowsy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.

Shadow and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.

"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance. If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!"

"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ah. How it skreeks. There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour."

The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

"What odds then. What odds, Mrs Dilber." said the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did."

"That's true, indeed," said the laundress. "No man more so."

"Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?"

"No, indeed," said Mrs Dilber and the man together. "We should hope not."

"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."

"No, indeed," said Mrs Dilber, laughing.

"If he wanted to keep them after he was dead, a wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself."

"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe."

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come.

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?"

Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown."

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains?"

"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains."

"You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and all, with him lying there?" said Joe.

"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"

"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe," and you'll certainly do it."

"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't drop that oil upon the blankets, now."

"His blankets?" asked Joe.

"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He isn't likely to take cold without them, I dare say."

"I hope he didn't die of any thing catching. Eh?" said old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah. you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied the woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did in that one."

Shadow listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they demons, marketing the corpse itself.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you see. He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha!"

"Spirit," said Shadow, shuddering from head to foot. "I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Mobius, what is this?"

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Shadow glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

Shadow glanced towards the Phantom...

**I'm hurrying this up a bit because I really want to get this finished by christmas day.**

**Last two chappies coming soon!**


	10. Stave 4 part 2

**See? I'm really rushing this! And only 1 day left till Xmas! I already started the last chappie and its going well so...**

**Merry christmas eve!**

**Enjoy!**

**-H.S.H**

Shadow glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon Shadow's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it; but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at his side.

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command: for this is thy dominion. But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike. And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!

No voice pronounced these words in Shadow's pointy ears, and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts. Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares. They have brought him to a rich end, truly.

He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A terrible looking chao was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Shadow did not dare to think.

"Mysterious hedgehog,." he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go."

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.

"I understand you," Shadow returned, "and I would do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power."

Again it seemed to look upon him.

"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man's death," said Shadow quite agonised, "show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you."

The Phantom spread its hands like he was using chaos control for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play.

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.

"Is it good." she said, "or bad?" - to help him.

"Bad," he answered.

"We are quite ruined."

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."

"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is. Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened."

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."

She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.

"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then."

"To whom will our debt be transferred?"

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline."

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's faces hushed, and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's death. The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.

"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said Shadow; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever present to me."

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Prowers were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet.

"And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them."

Where had Shadow heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.

"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Charmy Bee.

"They're better now again," said Tails' wife. "It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time."

"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. "But I think he's walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother."

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

"I have known him walk with - I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."

"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."

"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.

"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble - no trouble. And there is your father at the door!"

She hurried out to meet him; and Tails in his comforter - he had need of it, poor fellow - came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young Prowers' got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved."

Tails was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs Prower and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

"Sunday. You went today, then, Miles?" said his wife.

"Yes, my dear," returned Tails. "I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!" cried Tails. "My little child!"

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were.

He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Tails sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Tails told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr Shadow's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little - "just a little down you know," said Tails, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On which," said Tails, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr Tails,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.' By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know."

"Knew what, my dear?"

"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Tails.

"Everybody knows that," said Peter.

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Tails. "I hope they do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it wasn't," cried Tails," for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Charmy, and felt with us."

"I'm sure he's a good soul," said Mrs Prower.

"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Tails, "if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised mark what I say, if he got Peter a better situation."

"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs Prower.

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself."

"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.

"It's just as likely as not," said Tails, "one of these days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and when ever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Charmster - shall we - or this first parting that there was among us."

"Never, father!" cried they all.

"And I know," said Tails, "I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Charmy in doing it."

"No, never, father!" they all cried again.

"I am very happy," said little Tails, "I am very happy!"

Mrs Prower kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Prowers kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Charmy bee, thy childish essence was from God.

"Mysterious hedgehog," said Shadow, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead."

The Ghost of Christmas Future conveyed him, as before - though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future - into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Shadow to tarry for a moment.

"This courts," said Shadow, "through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come."

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

"The house is yonder," Shadow exclaimed. "Why do you point away?"

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Shadow hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Shadow, "lemme ask you a question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Shadow. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Shadow crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG.

"No...It can't be" he cried, upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"

Shadow was not in tears but he was in terrible shock. He was on his knees

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at the ghost's air shoes, "hear me. I am not the same hedgehog I was. I will not be the Hedgehog I must have been put for this . Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"

For the first time,the ghost looked in shocked.

"AHA!" he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life."

The kind hand trembled.

"I'm sorry for being such a emo on christmas! I'm sorry I couldn't go to my nephew's party. I'm sorry for being so mean! I may not be able to change the past, but I still have time to change my future please tell me I would not be the same dark hedgehog I am

I'll promise I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hair and arms. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

**Like I said, stave 5 will be a mega chappie! Ooh look its almost christmas! Better get started!**

**See ya!**


	11. Stave 5: Have a Super Sonic Christmas!

**Merry christmas Guys!**

**Well, here it is! The last ever chappie of sonic christmas carol****! **

**Enjoy for the last time!**

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!,I will not be an emo!" Shadow repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Ivo Robotnik! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Ivo, on my knees!"

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

"They are not torn down!" cried Shadow, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here - I am here - the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be! I know they will."

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

"I'm alive!" cried Shadow, laughing in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as happy as a hedgehog!oh wait I am a hedgehog! Shadow laughs uncontrollably. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hello here! Whoop! Hello!"

He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there: perfectly winded.

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Shadow, starting off again, and frisking round the fireplace. "There's the door, by which the Ghost of Ivo Robotnik entered. There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present, sat. There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits. It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!"

Really, for a hedgehog who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs.

"I don't know what day of the month it is," said Shadow. "I don't know how long I've been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hello! Whoop! Hello here!"

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!

"What's today?" cried Shadow, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

"Eh?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

"What's today,little boy?" said Shadow.

"Today?" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day."

"It's Christmas Day!" said Shadow to himself. "I haven't missed it. The Ghosts have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can. Hello, my fine fellow!"

"Hello!" returned the boy.

"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the corner?" Shadow inquired.

"I should hope I did," replied the lad.

"Wow, your a smartster!" said Shadow. "A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they"ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there - Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?"

"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.

"What a delightful boy!" said Shadow. "It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, buddy."

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.

"Is it?" said Shadow. "Go and buy it."

"Walker!" exclaimed the boy.

"No, no," said Shadow, "I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell them to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and I'll give you an extra life. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I'll give you my damn fourth chaos emerald!."

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.

"I'll send it to Tails prower's!" whispered Shadow, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Charmy. Gerald never made such a joke as sending it to Tails' will be!"

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

"I shall love it, as long as I live!" cried Shadow, patting it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face. It's a wonderful knocker. - Here's the Turkey. Hello! Whoop! How are you? Merry Christmas!"

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped them short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Emerald Town," said Shadow. "You must have a cab."

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.

He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Shadow regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning, sir. A merry Christmas to you." And Shadow said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and said, "Shadow and Eggman's, I believe." It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.

"My dear hedgies," said Shadow, quickening his pace, and taking the old gentleman by both his hands. "How do you do. I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!"

"Mr Shadow?"

"Please," said Shadow. "Call me shads,shadie or shadster, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness" - here, Shadow whispered in his ear.

"Holy Chaos Control and Merciful Mobius!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. "Shadow the hedgehog, are you serious?"

"If you please," said Shadow. "Not a ring less. A great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favour?"

"Shads.," said the other, shaking hands with him. "I don't know what to say to such munificence."

"Don't say anything please," retorted Shadow. "Come and see me. Will you come and see me?"

"I will!" cried the cheerful gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.

"Thank you," said Shadow. "I am much obliged to you. thank you fifty times. merry christmas!"

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk - that anything - could give him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house.

He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it:

"Is mr. Hedgehog at home, my dear?" said Shadow to the girl. Nice girl. Very.

"Yes, sir."

"Where is he, my love?" said Shadow.

"He's in the dining room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you upstairs, if you please."

"Thank you. He knows me," said Shadow, with his hand already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear."

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

"Sonic!" said Shadow.

Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started. Shadow had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it, on any account.

"OMG, HOLY MOBIUS!" cried Sonic," who's that?"

"It's me, uncle Shadow. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Sonic the Hedgehog?"

"Let him in!" It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Scourge when he came. So did amy's sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness!

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh he was early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Tails coming late! That was the thing he had set his heart upon.

And he did it; yes, he did. The clock struck nine. No Tails. A quarter past. No Tails. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Shadow sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

"Your late MR Prower!" growled Shadow, in his accustomed voice, as near as he could feign it. "Care to tell me why?"

"I'm very sorry, sir," said Tails. "I am behind my time."

"You are?" repeated Shadow. "Yes. I think you are. Step this way, if you please."

"It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Tails, appearing from the Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir."

"Now, I'll tell you what, my two tailed friend," said Shadow, "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, Tails shook violently in his waistcoat while he sank that he staggered back into the Tank again; "I'm raising your salary."

Tails trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Shadow down with it, holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.

Then,he stopped and gasped

"A merry Christmas, Tails," said Shadow, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Tails, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year. I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Tails. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another , Tails Prower! Oh, and another thing, call me shads from now on alright?"

Tails was speechless, he felt like hugging shadow

"Thank you mr shadow! Oh I mean shads!"

"No problem! And also, look outside"

Without further ado, he looked outside and saw his family, sonic, his wife and his party guests !

"Merry christmas everyone!"Shadow said cheerfully

Tails rejoined his family and kissed his wife on the lips; the two little prower said : "eww yuck!"

Sonic was gonna do that aswell but shadow interupped him. "Yo sonic! Wanna go for a race?"

"You kidding me, unc?"

"I'm serious!"

"Okay then on the count 3! 1...2..."

But shadow was already off! "Catch me if u can!"

Sonic was astonished! "Hey! Not cool, uncle shads! And that's what I say!"

Sonic ran after him

"I don't care! I am the ultimate life form!" Shadow laughed hysterically

Both of them created sonic booms all over mobius

Amy, sonic's wife sighed and said: "there he goes again"

Once they came back to the spot they started from, shadow came first

"Whoo hoo I won! I am the ultimate!"

Sonic couldn't believe it

"What!? It can't be! I'm the fastest thing alive! I can't be beaten to my own uncle!

"Guess what faker, you was!"

Sonic was a bit annoyed that he lost but he accepted it

"Same time next year?"Shadow offered a handshake to sonic...

"Your on, unc!"...and sonic accepted it.

Then shadow came up with a song:

**Have yourself, a super sonic christmas**

**Let your ****emeralds be bright**

Then everyone joined in

**Next year,we'll be back in the games ****again**

Sonic sung solo

**Have yourself, a super sonic christmas,**

**Make the rings shine of gold,**

Everyone joined in the song again

**Christmas lights, and christmas ****trees will shine for you,**

Shadow,sonic,tails,amy,cosmo,charmy, and everyone else sang the last verse together

**So,have your****self a super sonic christmas...Now.**

**Charmy shouted: "God Bless Us Everyone"**

**And then everyone shouted "God Bless Us Everyone!"**

From there on out, Shadow was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Charmy, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. May that be truly said of us, and all of us: and as charmy bee said "God Bless Us everyone!"

**The end!**

*sonic 1 credits music!*

**There you have it folks my first fanfic complete! I'm so proud of myself!**

**First of all, thank you for all the people who reviewed my first fic so appreciated of you!**

**And this fanfic has over ****750**** views! Impressive**

**I wanna call every sonic character out who has role played dicken's characters****:**

**First of all,I****n**** order of appearance:**

**Shadow the hedgehog as Ebenezer scrooge**

**Dr. Eggman as jacob marley**

**Miles 'tails' Prower as bob cratchit**

**Sonic the hedgehog as Fred Scrooge**

**Silver the hedgehog as The Ghost of christmas past**

**Knuckles the Echidna as The Ghost of christmas present**

**Mephiles the dark as The Ghost of christmas future**

**A****my rose as Sonic's wife**

**Cosmo the seedrian as Tails' wife**

**Charmy bee as tiny tim**

**Scourge the hedgehog as tupper (or topper)**

**Rosy the rascal as florence**

**Well,that's all the characters I can think of**** plz tell me if I missed out any.**

**Well that wraps it up for this fanfic **

**Have a super sonic christmas and a hyper new year!**

**See ya next year!**


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